


Two of Us

by michelemerisi



Category: Iron Man (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Eventual Smut, M/M, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26538538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michelemerisi/pseuds/michelemerisi
Summary: This work is based on these Iron Man comics: World's Most Wanted; Stark: Disassembled; Fear Itself; Extremis and the Civil War series.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Kudos: 4





	Two of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Since some of you may not have read the comics in which this story is based (I highly recommend you do, though), here goes a resume: 
> 
> After Civil War, Norman Osborn ends up in charge of SHIELD. Norman starts hunting for Tony because of the secret informations his brain contains, such as his projects and prototypes for example [*in Extremis, Maya Hensen save Tony's life by injecting him a dose of the Extremis virus. Thanks to that event, his body becomes a hybrid of human and machine, so you can literally copy everything in his brain and put it on a pendrive, for example]. 
> 
> Tony escapes and travels the world as a wanted man, erasing his own memory in "bases" he has around the globe — like Stark Industries offices.
> 
> [SPOILER FROM THE COMICS]
> 
> Tony ends up successfully erasing all of his memory to prevent Norman from having access to it, but as he literally erases everything, his body forgets even how to breathe and he goes into a coma. 
> 
> He leaves some instructions to "reactivate" him if necessary though, but leaves the decision (to reactivate him or not) in his friends' hands (Pepper, Maria Hill, Natasha, Steve, Strange and Thor). They decide to bring Tony back and follow his instructions, but it doesn’t work - Tony doesn’t come out of the coma because he’s trapped inside his own mind, like in a dream, and in the dream he is tormented by his worst nightmares: Howard, the people he already killed/couldn't save and etc. 
> 
> Strange enters his mind to wake him up from the inside, and there he sees all of Tony's fears and torments. He tells Tony to hold onto something or someone worth living for, and as Tony thinks of it, he finds the strength and courage needed to come out of that nightmare. Tony wakes up with a backup of his old memory, so he regains his memories up to the point where the last backup was made: just before the Civil War. 
> 
> All of them are considered wanted outlaws as they run from both SHIELD and Osborn. At a certain point, Tony realizes there's something missing between what he remembers and the present day, and goes on a research over what he lost — he finds out about Civil War and his fight with Steve, which makes him kind of heartbroken.
> 
> My story begins while they're still running away and hiding around the world. They split up the group into doubles and trios, Tony ends up with Steve — who wants to sort out what happened between them while helping Tony to fit in their new reality. Every chapter is named after a song that can relate to what's happening in the story, and the name of this story came from 3 different songs: 'Two of Us' from Supertramp, 'Two of Us' from the Beatles and 'Two of Us on the run' from Lucius. If you feel like it, I recommend all of you to listen to those songs. 
> 
> This is my first time writing fanfiction and English is not my mother language, so please be patient with the mistakes I might make along the way. I'd appreciate constructive criticism and feedbacks. 
> 
> Please enjoy.

As a child, I never had trouble sleeping. Dad would never allow such behavior. So, I knew if I couldn’t sleep I’d end up facing my own bedroom ceiling all night long — and when you’re a child, nights can be very long. Even with my nightmares and fears — which children have from time to time —, I knew the only way was to swallow it up and wait for sleep to come. Howard said he was raising me to be a champion. At the time, I just wanted him to be “normal” and comfort his son once in a lifetime. But I wasn’t normal too, so... how could I point my finger at him?

I’ve been awake for 32 hours now. While I face the ceiling I try to ignore the urge to get out of bed and stop waiting for sleep to come when I know it won’t. Steve will wake up anytime by now to go on his morning run, and I have no intention to meet him in the hallway again and having to pretend that I’m just thirsty and got up for a cup of water when in fact I’m looking for somewhere else to sleep in the house. I got myself wondering what Howard would say if he knew I can’t sleep at this point in my life because I’m scared of the nightmares. I’ve got some grey hair both in my head and my beard. I’m almost fifty years old and still, I’m too scared to fall asleep.

It’s ridiculous and confusing, but the worst part of it all is going through this alone. As an adult, I must deal with my own demons; as a grown man, I must ignore the absence of another body beside me in bed. Even though I never ended up getting married or going through a long and stable relationship, I always made sure my bed wasn’t empty. There were times when I just closed my eyes and randomly picked someone up to fill that space with me for the night. The emptiness is too much for me to bear, it echoes inside of me. 'Empty' reminds me of all the bottles of liquor I’ve drank alone for all these years. Reminds me of myself, and of my father — two men who, I believed, are not so different from each other at all. Reminds me of those seconds of silence when I realized I was going to die in space, before I closed my eyes.

After they brought me back from the coma, we decided that our best shot at staying alive and out of Norman Osborn’s sight was to split up in smaller groups. Pepper, Hill and Natasha formed a trio. I was happy with that because I know they form a great team. Pepper would be safe despit being the one with less experience in this runaway life. Thor went back to Asgard — he came only to bring me back to life, and seems to have his own trouble to deal with back there. Strange is a lone wolf — that makes me uncomfortable even though I’m aware he’ll be fine. Steve and I ended up forming the last double, obviously. The things between us are... strange. We’ve been avoiding each other and avoiding the whole situation between us, and Pepper realized that. She gave me some of her looks during our last meeting.

To me, Steve now is a five-thousand pieces puzzle that I mounted before, but then ended mixing it up and now I have to start all over again. Facing all those pieces makes me nervous — they're so many and I have no idea from where to begin. Sometimes I wish Strange came with us as a trio — he’d be very useful helping me with this after touring inside my mind (or what was left of it). But at the same time, I can barely look at him in the eyes. I hope he knows I don’t mean to be ungrateful — I know he brought me back. It’s just... well, I spent my whole life keeping all those demons bottled up in some corner inside of me, and now the bottle’s broken. I feel turned from the inside out, naked and exposed — specially besides him.

From my bedroom I can hear Steve opening his bedroom door and his footsteps in the hallway. I let out a sigh and smile softly — who chooses to wake up this early? —, waiting a few more minutes for the sound of the front door closing. I sit in the corner of my bed and yawn, rubbing my face with my hands. I probably look like shit. In order to get rid of that sleepy face, I take a shower — I know Steve knows when I’m tired, but he doesn’t need to now I haven’t been sleeping. After the shower I go to the kitchen downstairs, making myself a cup of strong and hot coffee. I remember needing to climb up the kitchen’s balcony to reach my old Captain America mug — old habits die hard.

When I suggested coming to Italy, I thought it’d be a good idea. Steve and I came to my mother’s old summer house, located in a quiet and small village. I spent many summer weeks with her here, mostly before I was sent to the intern school. Most of my memories related to this place are good. I remember the way she’d play with my hair when I laid on her lap while we were on the couch — my mother was always a very beautiful woman, and I loved to stare at her whenever she looked happy. Lying on her lap, I’d be fascinated with the way her lipstick-colored lips would move while she read some book I had chosen from the library. Actually, her library was probably my favorite place of the house. It was our safe spot, there were no need for worries when we were there. We could share those moments in each other company without fear — dad was far away from there, sunk into his own work or drunk, unable to reach us.

I walk barefoot to the library, stoping at the door and resting my shoulder on it’s frame while observing the room. It looks exactly as I remember. My eyes go through the titles carefully organized on the shelf, remembering those I have read as if I was opening and old closet inside my mind. It’s been years since the last time I came here, and a lot of things have changed — anyway, the familiarity in the air made me feel like Steve and I were lost in time, just like the house itself. We were trying to get lost, actually. We need to keep moving from time to time in order to guarantee we won’t be found, and that was the place I went with my mom when we needed to get lost. It seemed to be a good choice, even if it was temporary. But in my old bedroom, things are different.

As a child, it felt like the room had an almost magical aura. It was a piece of my world that I could let grow on the outside world — mom even let me decorate it the way I wanted to, mostly because my bedroom in New York looked like some sort of office. Howard didn't like it when I got distracted with toys — everything was supposed to make a genius out of me, his little prodigy. My bedroom there was projected to inspire my brain into maximum productivity and efficiency, while here I could be a relatively normal child Mommy even helped me stick those stupid fluorescent stars on the ceiling to help me overcome my fear of the dark. As I grew up, I had less and less time to spend with my mom, and even less time to come here with her. It was bearable while I could swallow along with alcohol how much I missed these moments. I told myself that nothing about it was so special, but the truth is that for many times I wished I could lock myself up here for the rest of my life.

I wanted to lock myself in this world so bad that being brought back to it now felt like all the anguish I've held in is out. It felt like being locked up inside a snow globe: it was both a prison and a paradise. Maybe tonight I should escape and sleep in the living room. Steve would be worried if he caught me there though, and as the boy scout he is, he'd probably offer to change places with me. I definitely don't want to have this conversation with him, specially when there's a cold war going on between us.

**Author's Note:**

> In this first chapter we get to see a lot of what's going on inside Tony's mind: his memories and his past are intertwined with his present, they keep coming up as there's no real division between what happened then and what's happening now. He's not completely sure of who he is at the moment.


End file.
